America yawned when four of our five living presidents lined up to dedicate the George Bush Presidential Library this month. But while Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George Bush and Bill Clinton posed with frozen flashbulb smiles, a reunion of three dead presidents at the public library turned into gripping group therapy for Power Abusers Anonymous.
Stories from JFK, LBJ and Nixon could send chills up the spine of a history book. The secrets of their consecutive presidencies, from 1960 to 1974, are being exposed simultaneously in three new books:
- The Dark Side of Camelot, by Seymour Hersh, has pried open the long-locked Kennedy closet, and skeletons are parading out like clowns climbing out of a tiny circus car.
- Taking Charge, by Michael Beschloss, uses White House audio tapes to lift the shirt on Lyndon Johnson and expose his crude appetite for power like an ugly surgical scar on the presidency.
- In Abuse of Power, by Stanley Kutler, Richard Nixon wiretaps himself and exposes a small-minded, third-rate burglar who steals political silverware, then whines that all the presidents do it.
The scary thing is that he's mostly right.
Here's Mr. Nixon, in Abuse of Power, telling Henry Kissinger in June 1973 that he would reply to wiretapping accusations by ''opening up'' all the dirty tricks by LBJ and the Kennedys: ''Now, the biggest tapper was Bobby Kennedy. Now, Johnson doesn't appear to be so big, but he had the Secret Service do it. . . . Well, (FBI Director J. Edgar) Hoover told me, he said, 'Bobby Kennedy had me tapping everybody.' I think, incidentally, I'm on that list.''
Nixon usually tops the list of political window-peepers, not wiretap victims. According to our mythology, President Kennedy was the star quarterback, assassinated before he could win the Cold War Super Bowl. President Johnson was tragically sucked into the quicksand of Vietnam. And Nixon was the high-pants, pocket-protector geek who mixed crime and politics and blew up the White House chemistry lab.
But together, these books and tapes expose the negatives of that phony snapshot in the White House album. White turns black, heroes become villains. JFK is the Johnny Appleseed of modern White House corruption.
In Dark Side, Mr. Hersh repeats the story told by Thomas Reeves in his 1991 book, A Question of Character: Joseph P. Kennedy used his mobster friend Sam Giancana to steal the 1960 presidential election for his son, by stuffing ballot boxes in Illinois.
The victim was Richard Nixon - who learned his lesson well. ''From this point on I had the wisdom and wariness of someone who had been burned by the power of the Kennedys and their money and by the license they were given by the media,'' Mr. Nixon later wrote. ''I vowed that I would never again enter an election at a disadvantage by being vulnerable to them - or anyone - on the level of political tactics.''
Kennedy cultists have vilified Mr. Hersh. They say we shouldn't be told about JFK's immoral secret life. Instead of clinging to a myth that never was, they should ask what might have been: What would Nixon have been like as the winner of a fair election in 1960? Was he already flawed - or was he permanently warped by being robbed?
And how many lives could have been saved if President Stuart Symington had taken the oath of office in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963?
Mr. Hersh reports that Sen. Symington was JFK's first choice for running mate - until Lyndon Johnson ''made an offer he could not refuse.'' Dipping into Mr. Hoover's secret FBI files on JFK, LBJ ''blackmailed his way into the vice presidency,'' Mr. Hersh writes. He quotes Evelyn Lincoln, JFK's personal secretary: ''Jack knew that Hoover and LBJ would just fill the air with womanizing.''
So America got LBJ - whose ruthless ambition consumed thousands of lives in a war he knew was wrong.
In Taking Charge, LBJ is taped confessing his fears about Vietnam. ''I'll tell you the more that I stayed awake last night thinking of this thing, the more I think of it, I don't know what in hell - it looks to me like we're getting into another Korea. It just worries the hell out of me . . . I don't think it's worth fighting for and I don't think we can get out. It's just the biggest damned mess that I ever saw.''
Yet he sent more Americans to die in a losing war, to win re-election - and doomed his presidency.
These books are a kaleidoscope of conniving, infidelity, lies and corruption. They turn the telescope of history around and make giant leaders look small. Suddenly, Nixon's Watergate looks like the natural fruit of a poison plant that grew in the soil of LBJ's raw ambition, with roots tangled in JFK's dirty tricks, womanizing and mob connections.
Each of these presidents did great things. But each also did great damage. America paid an enormous price.
Now we have a president who blends JFK's morals, LBJ's shameless ego and Nixon's crooked cover-ups. And we don't have the airtight alibi of being kept in the dark. We know too much about Filegate, Tapegate, Travelgate, selling influence to China, Whitewater, Paula Jones and ad nauseam. JFK's darkest secrets are now Bill Clinton's distinguishing characteristics.
So what kind of leaders will be taking charge next if we condone the Clintons' dark Camelot and abuse of power? What price will we pay if we learn from history - and still ignore it?
Mr. Hersh offers a blunt warning: ''The central finding that emerged from five years of reporting and more than a thousand interviews with people who knew and worked with John F. Kennedy, is that Kennedy's private life and personal obsessions - his character - affected the affairs of the nation and its foreign policy far more than has ever been known.''
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
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